“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.” -- Henry David Thoreau

About Me

Editor for publishing company by day; skald in the Hall of Fire by night; and member of the S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L.
Essayist and reviewer for numerous web and print-based fantasy publications, including The Cimmerian, Black Gate, Mythprint, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, The Dark Man, and SFFaudio.com.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Is The Lord of the Rings literature?

Part 1 of a 2-part series

And whether or not Tolkien’s works will stand the test of time is not within our lot to know, so that the Tolkien enthusiast’s need to defend Tolkien’s title of “author of the century,” as a result of the recent Waterstone’s poll of 25,000 readers in Great Britain in 1997, may be unnecessary and even gratuitous. A work like The Hobbit that has already been translated into thirty languages or one like The Lord of the Rings, into more than twenty, has already demonstrated the virtues of both accessibility and elasticity, if not endurance. An author who has sold fifty million copies of his works requires no justification of literary merit.

Jane Chance, Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England

Is The Lord of the Rings literature? The answer depends on who you ask. As I see it, four camps exist, each with a different take on the question.

Camp 1, Devoted Tolkien fans. Ask one of these folks and you’re likely to hear, “A Elbereth Gilthoniel! Of course. Need this question even be asked?” For members of Camp 1 the evidence is plain, the case long made for Tolkien’s literary greatness—even if they don’t always offer clear and/or compelling supporting evidence.

Camp 2, Ardent Tolkien haters. An answer by a member of Camp 2 is typically something along the lines of [Sarcasm mode on] “Tolkien’s books had literary merit?” [/Sarcasm mode off] No awful children’s story about Elves and Hobbits and Dark Lords could possibly qualify as literature. At least The Sword of Shannara wasn’t boring.

6 comments:

People who say it isn't literature are too short-sighted. Any book that will still be read centuries later is literature. Many books now firmly considered literature were not considered such at the time they were published.

Thanks for the comment, Ted. What encourages me about the (slow, very slow) acceptance of The Lord of the Rings as literature is that it should help open the door for other deserving works of fantasy as well. "Respectable" critics seem to have a bee in their bonnet about fantasy and sci-fi in general.

I've found it pretty darned easy, myself. If it's a written work, it's literature. Simple as that.

The question should be "is LotR great/good/important literature," not whether it's literature at all, which is a non-issue to me. Asking "is LotR literature" is, to me, like asking "is Conan the Barbarian a film," or "is C'est ne pas une pipe a painting": of course they are!

Pedantic it may be, but I find it better to make arguments more specific than not. Hence how I'll be happy to argue over whether LotR has literary merit, literary sophistication, or is "high literature," but not plain old literature itself.

I knew you wouldn't like that term, Al! I agree that is problematic, to say the least. Especially when something like a advertising pamphlet is often referred to as "literature."

In the end I went with it because I frequently see it used to denote the quality of a particular written work. If you ask your average Joe to identify which book is a work of "literature," and you hand him a copy of Wuthering Heights and a copy of First Blood by David Morrell, he'll likely pick the former.

I knew you wouldn't like that term, Al! I agree that is problematic, to say the least. Especially when something like a advertising pamphlet is often referred to as "literature."

In the end I went with it because I frequently see it used to denote the quality of a particular written work. If you ask your average Joe to identify which book is a work of "literature," and you hand him a copy of Wuthering Heights and a copy of First Blood by David Morrell, he'll likely pick the former.

I would still stick to that definition. It means I'd have to call "Twilight" literature, but I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. I'm just stubborn like that, I guess.

"Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other."